“Don’t,” Alan demanded, his voice tight.
“I wasn’t—,” Sin began furiously, and then realized that she’d been leaning her weight against someone with a bad leg. “I didn’t mean to,” she said quickly. “I’m sorry.”
“Not to worry,” Alan said, his voice a little too smooth, trying to let them slide past this moment as fast as they could. “What do I do now?”
Sin came around to his side, skirting him a little more widely than she had to. She saw him register that out of the corner of his eye and wanted to explain that she didn’t want to hurt him again, that was all, but she doubted that would help.
“Find your anchor point.”
“What’s an anchor point?”
“Where the hand is positioned and what the bowstring draws to. Choose a point on your face,” she said, and reached out to press her fingers lightly against the corner of his jaw. “Here, or the corner of your eye, or the corner of your—mouth,” she continued, and was angry with herself for the pause she hadn’t intended. “The anchor point is the most important thing in archery. It affects your draw length and the whole force of your shot stems from it. You have to choose your anchor point and always let the arrow fly from it.”
She withdrew her hand. Alan raised his bow from point to point, his face absorbed, and Sin watched as he settled on the corner of his mouth.
“Then hold, tense.” Sin ran a palm over the muscles of his back. She smiled. “Like that. And adjust aim, concentrate, and release.”
Alan didn’t fumble on the release. He let the arrow slip smooth through his fingers, drawing his hand back and loosing the bow. The arrow just missed its target.
“That really wasn’t bad,” Sin told him honestly.
She was expecting either frustration or pride, but Alan just smiled.
“Could be better.”
He took another arrow and strung it. This time he got it right first try, index fletch at his mouth, arms moving easy and graceful and sending the arrow in flight.
It hit the target, though just barely.
“Okay, that was actually good.”
Alan smiled. There was still nothing on his face but good humor and determination.
“Thanks,” he said. “Now can you teach me how to hit the bull’s-eye?”
Alan kept practicing, his draw getting smoother and smoother though his arms must have been killing him. Lydie and Toby were actually being very well-behaved, since he talked to them and they seemed to feel it was a great treat to sit and watch him.
At this point Sin’s role as teacher consisted of a few pieces of advice and a steady stream of insults and insinuations about how impressed Phyllis was going to be, so she sat back on the bank with her arm around Lydie and watched.
Lydie leaned into the curve of her hip. “Maybe he would like to stay for dinner,” she suggested shyly.
The Market usually had a communal dinner, potluck, batches of curry, a lot of barbecue in the summer. It worked for Sin, who was a pretty basic cook. But sometimes they stayed in the wagon, just the three of them, and ate easy things to make like beans on toast. She turned over in her mind the idea of having Alan there too.
Then Alan dropped his bow at her feet.
“I’ve got to go,” he said, his voice tight.
“What?” Sin asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Alan snapped, and turned on his heel. Sin noticed that he was not heading for his car.
She might not know Alan well enough to recognize when he was lying. Probably nobody knew him well enough for that.
But she could always recognize a bad performance. And Alan was excellent at pretending everything was all right: If he was turning in a bad performance, then something was really wrong.
Sin intended to find out what.
She couldn’t think of what she wanted first, though. Toby and Lydie came first. She ran over to Jonas and asked him to watch the kids for a minute, bring them to Trish if she was gone too long, make sure they were fed. Toby was playing with a tiny bow and looked happy, so she didn’t disturb him, but she stopped and hugged Lydie and told her she was just going to ask Alan if he would like to stay for dinner, after all.
Then and only then was she allowed to run, and she ran, sure and fleet, legs carrying her in easy motion over the fields in the direction Alan had gone. There were a few fences in her way: she ran at them, sometimes clearing them, sometimes hooking a foot in them and launching herself over them without breaking stride. She knew where she was going and what she was doing. Chasing Alan was easy.
Catching up with Alan was hard, because she had no plan of action for what to do when she drew level with him as he limped determinedly beside another fence.
He whirled on her, face very pale, and demanded, “What do you want?”
“What did you think you were doing, running off like that?” Sin asked. “You should’ve known I’d come after you.”
Alan’s mouth twisted. “And of course, I can’t outrun you.”
“Nobody can outrun me,” said Sin.
